With Hector gone, chores consumed me. There were no spare moments to dwell on Mark’s news. It was the first time I had ever been thankful for too much work.
“Susanna, we have eggs.”
I turned from the worktable. Dorcas and Delilah stood framed in the doorway, each grasping the handle of the egg basket.
“Excellent work, young ladies,” I said. “Please bring it here.”
Delilah scrambled onto the bench while her elder sister approached me.
“Is it baking day?”
I wrestled a lump of bread dough into a pan before covering it with a cloth. “Indeed, as Wednesdays always are,” I said, mopping my face with the hem of my apron.
Dorcas twisted to and fro, her little girl skirts swishing below her knees. “I should like a tart. Could you make one?”
“I suppose I could.” My lips fought a smile. “If you were to have a tart, what kind would it be?”
There was a hopeful huff. “What kind of fruit do we have?”
“Berries and peaches.”
“Oh.” She perched on a stool by the worktable and clapped her hands, golden curls quivering. “A berry tart would be lovely. What do you think, Delilah?”
Her little sister nodded eagerly.
“Let me see what I can find.”
I crossed to the pantry and reviewed the supplies stacked on ceiling-to-floor shelves. We were still low on all our staples. Most vexing. Mr. Pratt had not fetched more as he’d promised. Until he restocked, I would have to prepare recipes with less flour and spices.
“Would a cobbler do?” I called.
“Merciful heavens, yes,” Dorcas answered.
I laughed to hear her repeating my favorite phrase. She noticed too much.
After measuring the flour, I reached for the sugar cone and judged it with my eye. It would last us through the month. I must be thrifty with the sugar, as well.
An idea stirred, a happy memory of my grandmother’s favorite sweet. Much better than a cobbler, in my opinion.
I grabbed a pitcher of milk.
Dorcas sighed with pleasure as she watched me carry ingredients to the table. “May I help?”
“No, little one,” I said with a smile. Dorcas would likely place more fruit in her mouth than in the recipe, “but I would enjoy conversation.”
A shadow darkened the door. “Conversation about what?” Deborah watched us with suspicious eyes.
I clamped my lips together, reluctant to answer the unwelcome visitor.
“Susanna is making a cobbler.” Dorcas leaned her elbows on the table and propped her face in her hands.
Deborah sniffed. “Is Jedidiah’s dinner pail ready?”
I added a double portion of berries to the baking dish. “On the bench.”
Deborah snatched up the pail in one hand and held the other out to Delilah. “I’m taking our brother’s meal to the tutor’s house. Would you like to walk with me?”
The little girl slid off the bench and grasped her eldest sister’s hand. They disappeared through the doorway, Deborah’s strident voice talking as they went.
I relaxed again.
“Susanna, do you want to hear the news?”
“If you like.” I found a wooden bowl and spoon, only listening with part of my attention. Dorcas needed little encouragement.
“All right, then. Did you notice that Deborah seems upset today?”
Deborah Pratt was unpleasant far too often for it to be news. “What’s the reason for her unpleasant mood?”
“Jacob Worth ignored her at the tutor’s yesterday.” Dorcas sighed. “I can’t wait until she’s old enough to marry and leave our house. Then I shall be the eldest daughter.”
“She’s only thirteen. I fear you have a long wait.”
“Mama says fifteen is an excellent age to marry for a clever girl. But you are right; two years is quite a long time,” Dorcas said, her lips puckering into a tiny rosebud of despair. She watched as I added flour and sugar. “Do you like cobbler?”
“Very much,” I said, reaching for the milk.
“Do you ever get to eat any?”
I glanced at her face, but it was guileless. She hadn’t learned the rules yet. Servants ate only what the family left behind. “Not often. The Pratt children like to eat the entire sweet.”
“Yes, we do, and there are so many of us.” She bobbed her head, her cap slipping. “Three after me. Since you joined our family, you’ve had many babies to raise.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or ignore her. Dorcas dearly loved stories from her infancy, and she never grew weary of hearing them. I went along—as she knew I would.
“Indeed, I have. You were still toddling when I arrived. You were far too busy to mind if you fell over and bumped your head.”
“I was a sweet baby.”
“The best. Always cooing and beaming.”
“I was no trouble.”
My eyebrow shot up in mock surprise. “I don’t remember it the same way.”
She giggled. “I was an easier baby than your sister.”
“That is true.” Phoebe had been delicate at birth. Although not quite six years old myself when she was born, I tended to her and my mother while my father and brothers handled the chores. That period had given me the knowledge to care for babies, a skill which the Pratts had used often. “My sister didn’t begin life with your robust health.”
“Susanna,” Dorcas gasped and surged onto the worktable to frown at the bowl, “you are adding too much milk.”
I smiled at the top of her head. “I thought I would make a sonker.”
“What is that?”
“It’s a cobbler with too much milk. Sonkers were a specialty in the town where my grandmother grew up. She taught my mother how to make it, and my mother taught me. I cannot share the recipe with anyone.”
“It’s a secret?” Dorcas asked in a reverent tone.
“Indeed. My mother and I are the only two in the county who know how to make sonkers.”
“I shall look forward to this treat.” She slipped off her stool and circled around to my side. With lightning speed, she stuck her finger in the bowl, skillfully avoided the tap of my spoon, and tasted the batter. “Mmmm. This will do nicely.”
“I am happy it pleases you.” To conserve the sugar, I had used a small portion. It was gratifying that Dorcas hadn’t complained.
“Phoebe is such a fortunate girl. I should like very much to have you for my sister.” She leaned against me, one arm hooked about my waist. “Will you truly leave on your birthday?”
I nodded gravely. “I must.”
“I shall miss you fiercely. Will you write me letters? Will you come back to see me?”
Her questions caught me unawares. Averting my face, I set down the spoon and wiped my hands on my apron. For seven years, my master and mistress had treated me with less care than one of their livestock. I was expected to do my chores with consistency. Accept my punishments with humility. Eat the dregs at the bottom of the kettle with gratitude. Confine myself at night to a leaky, drafty space no bigger than a coffin.
Since they wanted only work from me, work was all they received. I gave them no opinions. No thoughts. No feelings. I saved the best of me for my haven at the falls.
With my time short here, it would be far easier if I could leave without regrets. Yet Dorcas was such a delight, it was impossible to steel my heart against her. Picking up my spoon, I gave her a smile. “I shall only be as far away as Raleigh. We shall visit. And you have three lovely sisters to keep you company.”
“I don’t think Deborah is lovely at all. She tattles on me all the time.” An indignant Dorcas continued at length, recounting another event where Deborah’s excellence at snooping had earned Dorcas extra hours stitching samplers. Relieved at the change in topic, I nodded at intervals while I finished preparing the treat.
As I lifted the dish of sonker, she poked me in the side. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I suspect I can.” Hiding a smile, I crossed to the stone hearth. Her secrets were rarely interesting enough to remember.
“I think Papa sold Hector because he’s a thief.”
“A thief?” I shook my head. “You must be mistaken. Hector would not steal.”
“I heard Papa tell Mama he found a jar of stolen coins hidden in the cellar.”
Her words sent a chill skittering down my spine. A jar of coins? I closed the Dutch oven lid, picked up the pitcher of milk, and walked outside to the cellar. My jar rested on a rickety shelf near the entrance. I lifted it and gave a little shake. It was empty.
Had Mr. Pratt found my missing coins? My mistress had given them to me. Hector hadn’t stolen them. Had Mrs. Pratt said nothing in his defense?
It was wicked to press Dorcas for details, but I would do so anyway. I had to know. When I reentered the kitchen, I asked, “What, precisely, did your father say about Hector? Do you recall?”
She pursed her lips. “Let’s see. It was something like… ‘Anyone who takes what is mine will find the punishment severe.’”
* * *
My master liked his cobblers to have a crisp crust. Berry sonker would not please him.
I prepared a tray with six bowls, spooned a small portion of sonker into each, and carried the treat to the dining room.
A hiss whistled through his teeth. “Is this a pudding?”
“No, Papa,” Dorcas said. “It’s a cobbler with too much milk.”
I nodded in confirmation, gaze lowered, biting my lip against an unruly bubble of laughter.
“Look at me.” His upper lip curled.
I met his gaze and felt an odd sense of power. He wasn’t nearly so intimidating perched on his mahogany chair. From this angle, I noted thinning hair and sagging skin. He was simply a man in his thirties, aging without grace.
But the eyes—they remained sharp. At this moment, they flared with irritation and something more. Suspicion?
“Why did you make this particular dessert?”
The children and Mrs. Pratt watched, still as stumps.
“Milk is plentiful,” I said, “and the recipe permitted me to be frugal with the flour and sugar.”
Anger stiffened his jaw. He wouldn’t wish to comment on the state of our pantry. It was a rare show of defiance from me, one for which I was likely to pay.
He tapped his lips with a long, bony finger. “A decision both bold and economical.” His glance took in his family. “Who would like to try this pudding?”
The rest of the family ate with relish until each bowl was scraped clean. Anticipating that my master wouldn’t be interested, I’d reserved a small amount of the treat from the baking dish. I would take the last bit to Mark.
When I left the kitchen after supper, Jedidiah followed me at a discreet distance. Unfortunately for him, he was too discreet, for I dodged behind a bush, waited for the boy to pass, and followed him. He rounded the next curve, scanned the clearing, and peered into the growing shadows. With a snort of dismay, he ran down the path toward the village.
I made my way to the falls and climbed down while hugging a dish to my breast. Pausing at the bottom, I strained to see through to the other side. Neither Mark nor his bike was there.
Perhaps it was too early.
Perhaps he wouldn’t come.
It was only when I turned toward the cave that I saw him, waiting in its deepest recesses.
Smiling with delight, I joined him. “You have been brave to venture into the wilds of Worthville.”
“If you don’t want me here…” He rose in a show of leaving.
“No, no,” I said with a laugh. “Please, stay.” He laughed with me and sat.
I sat, too, a proper distance away. “Where is your bike?”
“I walked today.” He gestured vaguely at the trail in his world. “I don’t live far. If you turn left at the top of the incline, we’re about a five-minute walk up the greenway.”
“What is a greenway?”
“It’s a trail that the government takes care of. No one is allowed to cut down the trees along greenways or build anything on their edges. That way, they stay perfect for walking and biking.”
“Why can you not use roads?”
He gave me a half-smile. “People can’t walk on roads. It would be too dangerous. The wagons we have now are very powerful and can cause a lot of damage.”
“What about horses?”
He shook his head. “We don’t ride horses much.”
I loved to hear him speak about his century. The effort he took to explain things charmed me. “How else do you use them?”
“We don’t use them at all. People in the city don’t keep farm animals anymore.”
“You have no animals?”
“None except a cat—although, strangely enough, at my house we have a barn.”
I wouldn’t like to live in a place without farm animals. “A barn for one cat?”
“Actually, my dad stores his toys in the barn.”
A barn for the toys of a man? “I see.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You are correct.” I held out the dish and smiled, happy to be here. “I brought you something.”
“What is it?”
“Berry sonker.”
He sniffed. “Did you make it?”
“I did.”
He dipped the spoon into the dish and scooped up a small bite. “Oh, man. That’s amazing.” A second spoonful disappeared much more quickly than the first.
I relaxed at his reaction. “So, you like it?”
“Yeah. It tastes like my grandmother’s bread pudding.” He finished his portion. “Now I feel bad that you tried harder with your treat than I did. I got your ice cream from the store.”
At a store? Mr. Foster had ready-made items to buy on occasion. Pickles. Meat pies. Candies. But nothing so fragile as ice cream. “They make it at a store?”
“They make it in Vermont.”
I knew enough geography to know the distance from Vermont. It would take weeks of travel. “The state of Vermont? Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“How can it come so far and not melt?”
“We have vehicles that can keep things frozen, even during the summer.”
My mind struggled to keep up with such ideas. “You must have many interesting inventions in your time.”
“You don’t know the half of it. A lot of the things you would think of as magical, we’ve figured out.”
“Like what?”
“Those vehicles that keep the ice cream cold move by themselves.”
“How?”
“They burn oil, which pushes them along.”
I liked the tone of his voice—the way he spoke to me. Not as if I were stupid, but with the ease of two equals.
“What else is different?”
It was a pleasure to watch him when he concentrated. His eyes brightened. His brow scrunched. His whole face revealed his every emotion.
“There are more girls in college than guys.”
“Truly?”
“Totally true.
“How long do you go to school?”
“Probably twenty years.”
Twenty years of school. How lovely that sounded. “Can you think of other changes?”
“We’ve had a black president. Elected twice.”
I gasped. “A black man? For president of the United States?”
“Yeah.” He laughed at my shock. “And we have vehicles that fly through the sky.”
“Like birds?” Might he be joking?
“Huge birds. We call them airplanes.” He reached into his pocket and drew out the small piece of black slate. “We can talk into a machine and people can hear us far away.” He slipped it into my palm. “It’s called a phone.”
This object was a machine? How could that be? It was smaller than a slice of bread, as light as a serving spoon, and had no handles or moving parts. This “phone” looked rather fragile and useless to me.
“How far away can you hear?”
“Thousands of miles. Maybe even on the moon. I’m not sure.”
“The moon?” I handed it back to him.
“Yeah. We’ve been there, too.”
I checked his expression carefully to see if he was teasing me. He appeared ready to burst into laughter at any moment. So perhaps he was. Certainly I didn’t believe him, though I wouldn’t admit it. Yet I loved being here with him, secluded, listening to his impossible, magical tales.
“Do you talk to your friends on your phone?”
“Not much. I mostly use my phone to play games or listen to music.”
“How do you get musicians in that small box?”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
I jerked as if his comment was a slap. He was correct, of course. I couldn’t understand his world. Couldn’t even know the difference between truth and joking. But it hurt all the same. I shifted away. “Indeed.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
I had no response.
He moved until our knees nearly touched. “Tell me what you do for fun.”
You wouldn’t understand. I swallowed the unworthy retort and pondered what else to say. There was little time for fun in my life. “I stroll in the garden.”
“Still sounds like work to me.”
“I suppose it is. But there are so many interesting things to see outside. I like to be in nature. I like to study plants. That makes the garden fun.”
“What else?”
I met his gaze. He had beautiful eyes. I couldn’t remain cross while they smiled at me so warmly.
“Independence Day comes in three weeks. We take the entire day off and celebrate.”
“Doing what?”
“The highlight of the day is a village-wide dinner. After spending the afternoon feasting, we spend the evening dancing.” Anticipation rippled through me. “Of course, we hold the races in the morning before the heat makes it unbearable.”
“What kind of races?” He hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees.
“Horse races and foot races. I especially enjoy watching the gentlemen run. Do you race?”
“On my bike.” His face grew thoughtful.
“Are you good?”
“Pretty good. I have a big race coming up at the end of July.” He picked up a stray branch lying nearby and stripped the bark, one section at a time. With a sharp fling, he tossed each strip into the stream. “I have to train extra hard. Most of my competitors started biking at an early age. I didn’t start until I was thirteen.”
His voice had rarely held such a tense edge when speaking with me. This topic had created a curious change in him.
“If you like biking so much, why did you wait until thirteen to compete?”
He flung another strip of bark. “I was fat.”
The years since had altered him profoundly, then, for he had a strong, lean body. “You are not fat now.”
“I had a lot of help.” His head swiveled toward me. “My aunt pushed me into trying all kinds of sports until I found something I really liked. Since my father loves mountain biking, he talked me into giving it a shot—and got me hooked. We’d go on rides together and I pedaled off the weight. Solved a bunch of my issues.”
I nodded with empathy, recognizing the hardened look of remembered suffering. “How peculiar. In my world, only the upper class can afford to be fat. It’s a reason to be envied, not despised.”
“Yeah, well, it sucks to be a fat kid in my century. You’re treated like total shit.”
I flinched at the harsh language but held my tongue. Here was something that had not changed across the centuries. People still found ways to keep others in their places.
The mixing of classes was what I loved about Independence Day. Villagers filled the lane, each eager to celebrate. For one day, a man’s speed or a woman’s baking received more praise than the size of their purse.
“Do you know what I like best about Independence Day?”
“What?”
“Country dances.” I stood. “Would you like to try?”
He stood, too. “No.”
“You don’t like them?”
“No. I mean…” He shook his head. “I’ve never tried one. But I have tried square dancing, and I don’t like it.”
“You will like country dances if I am your partner.”
“I don’t think that’ll make a difference.”
He had the look of a petulant boy. I gave him an amused smile. “It is understandable to fear doing poorly at new skills.”
“Excuse me? I’m not afraid.”
I patted my hand over my mouth, hiding a pretend yawn. “Merciful heavens, I am tired. I believe I shall go.”
“Wait.” He caught me by the elbow. “Maybe—”
“Please, Mark.” With a reproving look, I gently disengaged my arm from his grasp. “Do not concern yourself. I withdraw the request.”